The combination of television and prison is something that intrigues me. Naturally when one thinks about media and prison they may be inclined to think about how the prison system has been represented in different films or television. While it is true media can offer the ‘outside’ world a look within prisons it is much more compelling to think about how media and in particular television is literally the window through which the ‘inside’ world experiences or has knowledge of the ‘outside’ world. Having never spent time within such a facility it is difficult to say I know the role television plays for inmates nevertheless it is an interesting dynamic for one to think about.
Television programs are created for the purpose of entertainment and information and each program is created with a specific demographic or audience in mind. People watch television for a variety of reasons at many different points in their day. Television for a prisoner would seem to serve a much different purpose. Firstly, there doesn’t seem to be any programming created specifically for prisoners. We can assume that different individuals inside a prison will fall into different demographics just as they would on the outside. However, this assumption ignores the fact that being inside a prison is an entirely different demographic in itself. Secondly, prisoners watch television in a ‘non-appointment’ way. Many incarcerated individuals do not have the freedom to tune in to their favorite show or follow along with the newest series. Finally, the thing that makes television sustainable—the advertisements—are not useful to prisoners who are no longer regular consumers, unable to walk down to the local store and buy the product or use the service that is being advertised. In prison the purpose of television has been stripped to its roots—entertainment and information.
As entertainment television could be used as distraction or escape. To many individuals in society television functions as an escape from their daily lives, utilized for distraction or the pure enjoyment it offers. Serial programs invite us into their world and we become lost in their adventures while programs such as sporting events offer amusement and engagement. As information television becomes an interesting tool for prisoners. It offers a prisoner information and perspective on what is happening in the world that they are not a part of and may never be a part of again. It could be argued that since what is happening outside the prison walls is not directly affecting them inside it is not really necessary information to their lives at all. While this may make sense, no individual ever wants to be considered separate from society. (Is this thought—denying prisoners information about what is going on outside prison walls—unconstitutional or inappropriate?) In addition is it a conscious thought in a prisoners mind that what they are seeing on television is occurring outside the walls of the prison? If so it might then follow that the world of television functions to further emphasize to the individuals incarcerated the separation between the prison world and the outside world. In an essay titled Teetering on the Brink Between Life and Death from the book Live from Death Row Mumia Abu-Jamal communicates the role television plays within Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institute at Huntington:
TV is more than a powerful diversion from a terrible fate. It is a psychic club used to threaten those who dare resist the dehumanizing isolation of life on the row. To be found guilty of an institutional infraction means that one must relinquish TV.
After months or years of noncontact visits, few phone calls, and ever decreasing communication with one’s family and others, many inmates use TV as an umbilical cord, a psychological connection to the world they have lost. They depend on it, in the way that lonely people turn to TV for the illusion of companionship, and they dread separation from it. For many, loss of TV is too high a price to pay for any show of resistance (8).
The discussion about television in prison can give rise to questions about rehabilitation. If the goal of prison is to rehabilitate individuals so that they may contribute to society television could play a role. Simply allowing individuals the opportunity to sit around and watch television may cause one to question the difference between prison and mass people storage. Nevertheless, if prisoners are eventually expected to re-join society it would seem important for them to be allowed access to television or other forms of media to maintain an understanding of society and continue to be a part of society as a whole in at least an informed way. The function of television could be considered necessary to provide this link between the prisoner and the outside world, without television the walls of a prison might be that much more opaque.
